The Value of Children

I am writing this three days after a gunman opened fire in the Sandy Hook Elementary School and killed 20 children and 6 adults.  The news is on behind me with everyone giving their opinion about why this happened and what is wrong with our culture.  I've heard access to guns and lack of mental health care and violence in video games.  But you know what I haven't heard?

I haven't heard anyone speak the truth yet:  our society doesn't value children.

There.  I said it and now I'm crying because it hurt so much to say. 

Oh, we talk a good game.  We buy our children everything under the sun.  We take them to 15 different activities per day.  We make sure they have their Under Armour hoodie and Nike shoes and iPhone before we send them off for the day. 

But we do not value children.

Today, thousands of them will be murdered and we won't blink an eye.  It will not be reported on the news.  The President will not mourn their loss.  In fact, he will encourage it and wants the government to pay for it. 

Today thousands of preborn children will be ripped apart and sucked out and we don't care. 

Is it so hard to see that we live in a culture of death?  We tell our children that babies don't count because they are "unwanted" and "inconvenient"  and then we expect them to have respect for life?  Really?  Are we so blind?

Of course this is not just an American problem.  This is true across the world.  So many countries warehouse their unwanted children, barely meeting their basic needs and certainly not giving them anything close to the nurturing God intended. 

This past week the former director at Nora and Anna's orphanage was reinstated by the courts because what she did was not found to be "significant."  Eighteen children died under her care in the last year or so.  Teenagers were the size of infants.  Broken bones went untreated.  Children were left in cribs to rot.  But their lives were not important.

Children are not "significant."

Contrast this with God's view of children.  Jesus valued them so much that he said that we must become like them to enter the kingdom.  He rebuked his disciples when they tried to prevent the children from seeing Jesus.  Many of the healings recorded in the Gospels were of children. 

God values children!  All children! 

Meet Brandi.  God values her even if her society does not.  Even if no one here thinks she is important enough to rescue.  She is valued!



We can turn this thing around.  We can start to truly value children in this country.  Let's start with Brandi.  If God is prompting your heart, contact Shelley Bedford at shele337@gmail.com and ask about adding her to your family.

She matters to God.  We can have a culture of life.  One child at a time.